THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.
While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They
felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms
of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with
them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant
power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to
have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor.
There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great
Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name
was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous
maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a
barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among
the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother
Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never
finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to
have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a
dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His
grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest
and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of
his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took
pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a
wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him
all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when
looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of
deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and
blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy
Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and
peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual
custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and
date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might
be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked.
[Footnote 26: He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness
and constant absence of mind.]
This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling
weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common
soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains
which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and
inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken
mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard
for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy
which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the
storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" [27] exclaimed the soldier,
"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted
him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his
legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and
anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of
passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But
the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with
acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a
largess of more than 80_l_. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of
Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the
Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and
partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement
on the previous reign.
[Footnote 27: The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus
Caesar Germanicus.]
For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not
only were no _worse_ sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully
established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune
blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the
Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the
charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which
have been recorded of him show that he was something of an
archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy,
pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had
encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of
his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars
since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his
family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity.
Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the
civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our
own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned,
and both were eminently unwise;[28] both of them were authors, and both
of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to
worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with
such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them
had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary
presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good
dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both
of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in
rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in
prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I
am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out
into the minutest particulars.
[Footnote 28: "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet.
Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before
him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho].]
One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina,
from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these
princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of
our philosopher.
What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder
of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of
those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being
merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like
Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should
perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he
was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been
driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with
quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his
biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted
in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on
isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest
shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and
other writings full of those political and personal allusions which
convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception,
occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only
refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the
text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however,
certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of
Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a
conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court.
It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted
the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed.
A court at most periods is, as the poet says,
"A golden but a fatal circle,
Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils
In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence,
And beckon early Virtue from its centre;"
but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a
place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of
the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to
be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and
murdered by the third.
The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition;
but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the
government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded
Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an
ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the
friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks
of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these
monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister
rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius
his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with
whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius.
This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though
he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before
the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.[29] These men
became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when
Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied,
"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him
into partnership with them."
[Footnote 29: Acts xix.]
But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues
of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his
marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune.
He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was
that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was
the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been
united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the
Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the
sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of
them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was
betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined
for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended
Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By
his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he
had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in
boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the
air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the
unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the
child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia
Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he
divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal
infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the
younger for her unscrupulous ambition.
Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old,
yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of
the most unblushing wickedness.
But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own
jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and
Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than
herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to
make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the
supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their
wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal
fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when
the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even
in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph,
Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return
from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in
resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two
daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the
limitations to which her influence was subjected.
At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the
Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily,
however, it is not our duty to enter on the _chronique scandaleuse_ of
plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the
factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We
can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a
court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of
his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence
there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the
worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday
of Charles II. at Whitehall."
And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss
of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so
with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of
Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the
partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to
strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less
powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the
opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin.
His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made
him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her
rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia
was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile
and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and
pestilential shores of the island of Corsica.
Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed
at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion:
but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought
against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to
refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced
to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the
laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there
are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a
verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the
bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general
tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an
unsupported accusation.
Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was
accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on
the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us
that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he
was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of
his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only
_gave_ me life, but even _begged_ it for me. Let it be his to consider,"
adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish
my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will
make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether
his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to
his will."
This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of
Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's
immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of
him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is
barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet
there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation
before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at
all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability;
that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him
guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation
of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for
literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some
powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I.
remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on
Francis Bacon.
Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate
furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time
were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word
of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make
them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot
with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of
justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a
public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise
decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth."
On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so
impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool."
We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a
good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one
occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial
smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you,"
said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck
with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A
Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing
Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence
against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung
his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In
fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless
anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to
fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime
formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed
to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer,
"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and
were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the
gestures of the Emperor.
The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very
little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence
was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.